New York court lets Pannun serve summonses on Doval and Goel via Delhi courts under Hague Convention Article 19

A federal court in New York has permitted Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the general counsel of the banned Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), to serve summonses in his civil suit against National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Samant Goel by sending them to courts in Delhi, after his lawyers repeatedly failed to serve Doval in person during his official visits to the United States.

In an order dated 9 November 2026, US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York accepted Pannun's contention that Article 19 of the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents allows foreign judicial documents to be served through India's own court system. Pannun has been directed to place a proposed service packet before the Court by 30 November.

The order decides only how the defendants may be served. It makes no finding on Pannun's allegations, none of which has been established in any court, and the defendants remain free to contest the proceedings.

Pannun's case before the Court was that, where a receiving State's internal law allows documents from abroad to be served within its territory by a particular method, Article 19 of the Hague Convention permits that method to be used. Judge Failla agreed. She wrote, "The Court agrees with Plaintiff that Article 19 of the Hague Convention authorises service on Doval and Goel through service of summons mailed to those courts."

The courts referred to are the three Delhi court complexes Pannun had identified as having jurisdiction over the areas in which Doval and Goel are believed to reside: the Patiala House Court Complex, the Dwarka Courts Complex and the Tis Hazari Court Complex.

In support of that conclusion, the Court referred to Section 29(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which provides for summonses issued by foreign civil courts to be sent to courts in India and served as if they had been issued by those Indian courts. That provision supplied the Indian "internal law" on which the Article 19 route depends.

Under the order, Pannun must submit a proposed packet by 30 November. It is to contain copies of the summonses, the proposed method of service, the relevant provisions of Indian law, and documents showing that earlier attempts to serve the two officials under Article 5 of the Hague Convention were unsuccessful. Once the Court approves the packet, its clerk will transmit the documents to the Delhi courts Pannun has named.

The order follows several unsuccessful attempts by Pannun's lawyers to serve Doval personally while he was in the United States on official visits. In April 2025, the Court had rejected Pannun's claim that the summons and other papers had been delivered to Doval during his visit to Washington in February that year, and clarified that the complaint had not been served on him on that occasion.

The Ministry of External Affairs rejected both the suit and the allegations against Indian officials on Tuesday, 10 November. According to The Telegraph, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, "We reject the fabricated and malicious attacks on our high officials. Also, we reject the frivolous lawsuits. A request for serving of judicial documents in India can only be routed through India's designated central authority, that is the Ministry of Law and Justice."

The objection goes to the heart of the order. The Ministry of Law and Justice is India's central authority under the Hague Convention, the channel contemplated by Article 5, which is the very route the order records as having failed. Whether service routed through Delhi's courts under Article 19 will be treated as valid service is a question the defendants are free to raise.

Separately, the US State Department has transmitted the summons and complaint in Pannun's suit against the Government of India through diplomatic channels. In a letter to the Southern District of New York, the department said the documents were delivered to the Indian Embassy in Washington on 9 October under a diplomatic note signed on 30 September, The Telegraph reported.

The department said it was legally required to facilitate the transmission under Section 1608(a)(4) of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the provision that governs service on a foreign State through the State Department. It clarified that the transmission was a procedural step and did not mean it endorsed Pannun's allegations or held any position on the merits. Questions on whether service was legally effective, and on whether sovereign immunity applies, were left to the Court.

What does the civil suit alleges?

Pannun filed the suit in September 2024. It names the Government of India, Doval, Goel, Vikash Yadav, Nikhil Gupta and 50 unnamed defendants. He alleges that they conspired to assassinate him at his home in New York in 2023 in retaliation for his advocacy of an independent Sikh state, and seeks damages over the alleged attempt on his life. The allegations have not been proved.

India has designated Pannun a terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and declared SFJ an unlawful association. The group is associated with the Khalistan movement, which seeks a separate Sikh state carved out of India.

The civil suit is distinct from the US Department of Justice's criminal prosecution arising out of the alleged murder-for-hire plot. US prosecutors have accused Indian national Nikhil Gupta of conspiring with Yadav and others to hire a hitman to kill Pannun. Gupta was arrested in Prague in June 2023 and extradited to the United States.

According to the US indictment, Yadav was, at the relevant time, an Indian government employee affiliated with RAW. He was charged by the US Justice Department in October 2024 and also faces a case in India. US authorities allege that he contacted Gupta to arrange the killing.

Gupta pleaded guilty in February 2026. The two reports describe the charges differently: one states he pleaded guilty to three charges, namely murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, while the other refers to "charges including" the two conspiracy counts. He is scheduled to be sentenced on 20 November, and prosecutors have said they intend to present a victim-witness statement and audio and video evidence at the hearing.

Gupta's plea concerns only the criminal case against him. It does not establish any of the allegations made against Doval, Goel or the Government of India in the civil suit.

India has denies government involvement

India has rejected allegations that its government was involved in the alleged plot. In October 2024, the MEA said Yadav was no longer employed by the Government of India. The government also constituted a committee to examine the evidence and the issues raised by US authorities in connection with the alleged plot.

Source: Business Standard and Moneycontrol


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